Roughly two years ago the Italian Beholder surprised me with their refreshing style of power metal. While Italian bands are usually notorious for their excessive use of clichés like fantasy lyrics and artwork, Beholder walk a completely different path and strive to create their own sound as well as style. The band succeeds surprisingly well and Lethal Injection basically continues where its predecessor Wish For Destruction left off.

Lethal Injection opens with an ode to Stephen King’s The Shining; a short atmospheric intro called “The Overlook Hotel” and continues down that same path with “Mr. Grady”. A fast paced track that depicts Beholder’s style perfectly: twin vocals, good melodies and fast paced guitar action with a good dose of background keyboards. The female vocals from Leanan Sidhe are very good, she adds an extra dimension to the music, although near the end of the album her vocal lines become slightly too predictable.

My main problem with Beholder is Patrick Wire’s voice. His voice is simply lacking when he has to sing the more melodic parts of the album.

Although he is great when he screams more aggressively, Leanan’s soft-as-satin voice almost puts him to shame. This problem becomes even more apparent during the only ballad on the album, “Far Away”, which features Labyrinth front man Roberto Tiranti on main vocals; obviously Patrick realized his voice wouldn’t be able to cut it in such a melodic track.

Lethal Injection is definitely a step forwards from Wish For Destruction; the melodies are more diverse and the quality of the songs in general is simply better. Where Wish For Destruction started losing its appeal after a couple of songs, this new album manages to avoid that pitfall. Furthermore, the way that Beholder present themselves with daring cover artwork and modern lyrics is a very bold step that I highly applaud. Beholder are freeing themselves from all the clichés of the Italian power metal scene. Whether this bold step will benefit them or harm them is too early to tell but they have at least won my respect. Well done